BIGGEST political moments of 2019
2019 was a year book-ended by tragedy. As the prime minister and leader of the opposition both got more comfortable with their roles it was also a year absolutely full of huge political moments. Here are the Stuff gallery team’s picks of the biggest moments of the year. Under-siege PM announces ‘year-of-delivery’
It was a sunny day in Martinborough and KiwiBuild was falling over.
Just days before the out-of-office caucus meeting in January, Housing Minister Phil Twyford had admitted that KiwiBuild would not be getting anywhere near close to 1000 homes ready by July. Jacinda Ardern, facing her caucus with the media pack watching, needed a line that might change the narrative that her Government hadn’t really done much so far. Her press secretary Andrew Campbell came up with just the thing: The ‘‘year of delivery’’. It led headlines everywhere. But it also would come to haunt the Government.
March 15 followed by Ardern’s decisive leadership
When an Australian gunman allegedly attacked two Christchurch mosques on March 15 in the worst terror attack on New Zealand soil, life here changed forever. The globalised nature of terrorism – in this case farright extremism – was brutally demonstrated in the quietest Christchurch suburbs of Riccarton and Linwood. Ardern responded swiftly and decisively.
The prime minister was in New Plymouth when the news filtered in. In a hastily arranged news conference she set the tone for how New Zealand was to respond to the event by proclaiming very clearly that the Muslim community was every bit as Kiwi as she was. The next day she made clear that this would not be a tragedy that went unanswered, telling media directly that gun laws would change. They soon did.
Labour ditches CGT – forever
The Capital Gains Tax had been kicking round in one form or another as Labour policy since 2011. By the time Labour eventually made it into Government, two of the three people who introduced it, Phil Goff and David Cunliffe, had moved on to greener pastures (David Parker was the third). Andrew Little nixed it, but Ardern brought it back briefly before kicking the idea off to a tax working group. After an agonising wait, the tax working group finally delivered its recommendation which was (surprise surprise) a form of capital gains tax. However, introducing it wasn’t so easy. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters was against the idea, and would not be brought round. Ardern was forced to announce the tax had been axed.
Ardern announced it was off the table on April 17. Labour caucus was notified beforehand and a few were dispirited, although most concede rolling on CGT is a small price to pay for power. Ardern didn’t just axe the tax, she ruled it out while she was still leader, meaning a CGT in any form is probably very far away.
Simon Bridges stares down Judith Collins in caucus
Judith Collins had been sharpening her knife since she lost National’s leadership election last year, but noone quite knew when she’d decide it was time to plunge it into leader Simon Bridges’ back. Then, over a Parliamentary recess media reports began to seed the notion that Collins was about to make her move.
On the morning of April 30, when National was set to have its caucus meeting, Collins told media she was loyal to the National leader, but she could not bring herself to say that she was loyal to Bridges. But Bridges survived. Leaked details of the caucus meeting have Bridges facing Collins down, telling her to pull herself into line. It worked. Bridges emerged from caucus elated, with leadership squabbles.
Ardern travels to Paris to put the boot into tech companies
Two months to the day after March 15 Ardern sat in a ludicrously opulent room in the E´lyse´e Palace with many of the most important people in the world – the leaders of the UK, France, Canada, and several major tech companies. She unveiled a somewhat complicated but potent pledge that the companies were going to co-sign, making sure a livestreamed mass murder would not happen again.
Notably, US President Donald Trump and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg were not in the room. Questions remain over how much the ‘‘Christchurch Call’’ will change a tech world which mostly only pays attention to US laws. But it certainly showed that New Zealand and many other countries would no longer be content with just ignoring how much big tech has degraded the world community.
Budget ‘hack’
It was the Tuesday before the Budget and Ardern had just started her normal mini-press conference before her caucus meeting. Suddenly someone was asking her about leaked budget documents that had pinged their way onto journalist’s phones as she walked towards us. Ardern was visibly confused and said reporters shouldn’t take anything the National Party said as read.
Things got crazier from there. More (utterly boring) budget details leaked out, then the Treasury secretary said they had been hacked and got the police involved. Two days later to great fanfare Bridges made it obvious just how much of a non-hack this was. It overshadowed what should have been one of the best days for the Government this year.
Double poll – June
There are nowhere near enough political polls in New Zealand any more, thanks to their prohibitive expense and the ever-worsening financial state of news media.
But there was an embarrassment of riches on June 9 when two political polls came in at the same time, and completely disagreed with each other: One from Newshub/Reid Research and one from 1 News/ Colmar Brunton. The Newshub one could well have killed Bridges’ leadership if it had stood alone – it had National at 37.4 per cent, well below the 40 per cent line that was rumoured to be the trigger point for reconsidering his leadership. But the 1 News poll had National at a very strong 44 per cent, safely above Labour. What a moment.
Reshuffle kills off Twyford
KiwiBuild was in complete crisis by June, with Twyford no longer being able to promise 100,000 homes – the core of the actual policy. When the prime minister did her first proper reshuffle she took housing off him and gave it to Megan Woods, along with a frank admission that the policy had been a failure thus far. It wasn’t the first moment Ardern had to be brutal with a minister, but it felt like the most important one yet.
Ardern intervenes in Ihuma¯ tao
The protests at Ihuma¯tao have been going since 2016. But after an eviction notice was served on July 23 things kicked into a much higher gear, and people started to talk about it as another ‘‘foreshore and seabed’’ moment. Ardern sought to put a pin in all that with a hastily arranged press conference where she announced Fletchers would be pausing construction while some kind of deal was worked out. That deal has not yet eventuated – but her intervention was massive.
Part-time prime minister
It was late-July and Ardern was in Tokelau, a country that is technically part of New Zealand’s realm but is also incredibly hard to get to. Simon Bridges wanted to get across that Ardern was travelling too much, particularly as Ihuma¯tao was really kicking off back home. So he called her a ‘‘part-time prime minister’’ – and it stuck.
The line is of course ridiculous. Every prime minister works ludicrous hours. And going to Tokelau – a realm-of-New-Zealand country that hasn’t had a prime-ministerial visit since Labour was in government last time – definitely counts as work. But the emotional logic of the attack, particularly to a right-wing that wants to attack Ardern as incompetent as much as evil, worked perfectly.
Terms of trade
New Zealand’s terms of trade – the prices New Zealand receives from its exports – unexpectedly hit near record levels driven by strong lamb, beef and dairy prices. A boost in the terms of trade, as well as abetting a strong export sector, it flowed through to the Government coffers giving Grant Robertson more money to play with.
Reserve Bank considers ‘unconventional’ monetary policy
As the economic clouds on the international horizon advanced towards our shores, Reserve Bank
Governor Adrian Orr made the shock decision to slash the Official Cash Rate by 50 basis points, the biggest cut since March 2011, which was a response to the Christchurch Earthquake. It was August 7. Things were looking bad – and worse still, with rates already very low, there wasn’t much room to cut further, should the economy require it.
Orr told journalists he was prepared for this, but the response was something New Zealand had never seen before: unconventional monetary policy, which Orr said the bank was ‘‘well advanced on’’. This would be tools like quantitative easing (printing money).
Euthanasia goes to a referendum
The hardest vote for the End of Life Choice bill wasn’t whether it should pass or not. It was whether it should go to a referendum or not. Plenty of people who wanted the bill passed didn’t want it to go to a referendum. And yet almost all of them voted for it, because it was the only way NZ First would stay on-board with the bill – meaning it would eventually pass.
NZ First Foundation comes to the fore
For months – and years – rumours have swirled around NZ First and how it handles donations. Stuff’s Matt Shand broke the story of the secretive New Zealand First Foundation that has been effectively used as a political slush fund for NZ First’s political activities. Shand’s investigation found that donors who thought they were making a political donation were donating to the foundation and that the funds appeared to be used for campaign activities.
Looking ahead
On December 13, Treasury unveiled its latest set of forecasts for where the economy was heading. But the big news wasn’t where the economy was headed, it was Robertson’s decision to open up the chequebook and get spending after two years of playing coy with economists of all stripes, including the Reserve Bank Governor.
Robertson defied cynical expectations with a massive $12 billion infrastructure package, mainly geared towards transport. Economists licked their lips, but sounded a note of caution: it’s very easy to announce spending, but very difficult to actually get the money out the door.
That’s the big question hanging over the Robertson, and the Government at large as it heads into 2020.
Its next year of delivery has got to be better than this one.